winning kid in thimblerig (mid-highstakes)

This post has been edited 8 time(s), it was last edited by workah0lic: 05.06.2011 12:26.

Hi folks! Congratulations, you might have entered one of the few interesting and entertaining blogs which will be updated on a regular basis, lot of educational stuff'll be going on here... nah, forget that Let's just find out where this is going.

I am 25 and play poker for a living for about 4 years now.. I would never had played poker if it wasn't for one of my best friends, who sent me a screenshot of his PartyPoker-Roll (in 2006, about 20.000$). At that point I still planned to finance my studies with sports wagering
(or quit my academic career and become a butcher. Yeah, seriously.) Seeing that kind of money I thought to myself, well give it a try.. so I left home and moved to Vienna - best decision ever.

Although it was a tough hustle and grind in the first few years and I had to go through a lot of stuff, I kept working on my game / improving my mindset and gained confidence. Turned out there's much more value in playing cards than I'd ever expected. Currently my main game is Fixed Limit, where I play up to 100/200 (would play higher, giving soft action and more traffic).

I am currently working on my bachelor thesis and I am employed at the university for about 60 hours a month, so I have a lot of free time which I try to spend exclusively playing poker (having a social life, a girlfriend and being a FIFA/Soccer Manager-Fan is a little bit counter-productive to this ).
Nevertheless, I plan to learn several other game types: PLO and NL cashgame as well as NL MTTs. Concerning live poker, I'll visit Vegas in June/July and plan to play some tourneys. For that reason I spontaneously decided to play 1-2 side events at the EPT Berlin this week. Flights and hotel are booked

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by workah0lic: 05.04.2011 22:23.

updated my second post with some new information. thx a lot to jbpatzer: my signature is now working

Originally posted by TwiceT

Originally posted by workah0lic
questions are welcome

- u are from austria ... why dont we know each other? which city u live in? i know basically all austrian and german fl highstakes and nosebleed plrs (contact me ins skype sir
: TwiceT )

- im also in vegas june/july. gonna play the 10k events and some cashgames. let me know which hotel u stay in, what trnys u play and what parties u join etc

- im in berlin from next friday for bmp .... when are u bm??? since u play fl mainly, u must be making a shitload of rake

hehe
I am from Linz, so I have a big circle of friends here in vienna (because nearly everyone who wants to study is going there).. which means I didn't try to get to know other poker players in the past, always had something to do or someone to party with - but I didn't avoid that on purpose
I'll work on that the next few months

Regarding vegas - as soon as I know where I'll stay, I'll let you know. I plan to win or buy a cheap package as I primarily want to go there to party. Added you in skype. Regarding the black member party, I'll be in the carribean with my girlfriend and her brother (who happens to be one of my best friends - yeah the one who told me to play poker). What a pity

As I 12tabeled 5T 6max for about 2 years, I should have OVAARRRRR 9000 SPs. In fact, I played almost all of my hands untracked so I just have around 350k. I plan to become Blackmember end of this year. GL everyone

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by workah0lic: 05.04.2011 22:19.

[U]Tilting like a pro or: seems like I need a new chair
[/U]
please understand that there's a reason that i'll mostly post downswing graphs. of course i won at the lottery and now i am spending my lifetime-savings in poker, making people happy all around the world (hello tax office). random graph from last month:

played A-game (or as i am more the grinding machine with 14h+ sessions, B+ game), just had a bad run on the higher limits. In bigblinds (NL) and bigbets i was even up a bit.

Best thing about my poker play is, i tend to tilt around physically but I tiltplay very seldomly, don't know why but I can live with that. My girlfriend is not happy about me steaming and I am sure some day I'll collapse while trying to throw my setup out of the window, but hey what can you do.

However, my roommates happened to have a hard time with me as I was screaming and raging in front of my computer every single night. I guess our neighbors think they keep a mutant imprisoned in a cage or that i have tourrete-syndrome lol. I am really lucky to have such tolerant friends

Crushed another glass (they always get smashed when I am beating the table rapidly). I also threw my swivel armchair against the wall of my room but it was still working. Turning point of the month was a situation where I took my baseball bat and battered the sh** out of that chair (that b**** really had that coming). As it didn't show much resistance I won in the first round (K.O.).

Standing there in my shorts (when I become Hulk, my clothes are melting because of my burning desire to destroy everything), I had to play about an hour on my feet.
Pretty solid.

Punished myself with the promise to sit in a shaky wooden chair for two weeks, then I was allowed to buy a new one. Anyone interested in sidebets which furniture'll get its share next?

This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by workah0lic: 12.04.2011 18:41.

Tripreport EPT Berlin ’11

Hi guys - finally I am back from the EPT in Berlin. I played two side-events (for 1,100€ each) but didn’t make it ITM once. However, I am very satisfied with my performance and the trip in general.

In the 4-5 days before, I spent around 60 hours to study theory and watch videos. I’ve also played around 300 MTTs since I started to play poker with a ROI of about 23%, if I can trust OPR, so I’m not a complete beginner - but I have a lot of respect for every winning MTT player and there’s a lot I can (and have to!) learn for sure

Day 1:I landed in Berlin about 13PM, leaving me barely enough time to drop my luggage at the hotel and to walk to the casino. The tournament was surprisingly fishy; a lot of multiway, limped pots and ridiculous betsizes pre- and postflop were pretty standard. I was a little bit nervous in the beginning, but I became more confident after the first few hands, as there were only 2-3 good players on my table. Unfortunately, I had two callingstations on my left, so every pot which I openraised was 4-5 way and I didn’t hit a thing at first.

In the last hand before I got moved to another table, I called with TT after a minraise and 4 callers. Flop comes down TJ6 rainbow and the action in front of me is bet - raise.. I decide to push (which was about Potsize) and get 2 calls from Q9o (nh lol) and 66. Turn blanks, River is obv the 8, leaving me crippled with 10 bb

On the next table I start in the small blind with A5o, the button openlimps, I push, expert player snapcalls with 97o. Flop x7x, Turn blanks, River - A! Villain beats the table and is pretty annoyed.. yeah bro, I am pretty sorry for that bad beat
One orbit later I can double up with the Aces from the bigblind against KQo. Then (last hand before great dinner break) I defend T9s against the button-minraise from our expert player, flop KJx with flush draw for me. I decide to just call the flop, hit the flush on the turn and c/c it (). On the river I have 2/3 potsize left and decide to go for a c/c-r. Villain ships his 52o and I am above average again

After the break, things got more aggressive and there wasn’t much postflop play. I overpushed a shorty-push with AKo (shorty won with A3o obv) and finally busted with JJ against AKo as 70./226. Maybe next time.

Day 2-3:In the second tournament (55. or sth like that), I was pretty card-dead the whole time. There were a few interesting hands, but I am not in the mood to type that much today.. so to sum it up, I am pretty self-confident now regarding MTTs and plan to play a lot of the SCOOP events in May. I am also looking forward to the next live-tournaments as I managed to pick up a lot of tells (and recognized that even a lot of the better players there weren’t able to do so).

On sunday, I used the time to walk around in Berlin and went to a musical called “Hinterm Horizont” (behind the skyline”) - a lovestory around the fall of the Berlin Wall - really liked it
and I have a song of it stuck in my head since. After all, it was a nice trip!

On another note:I am trying to improve my blog steadily, so for today I created a flickr-account and uploaded a few pictures of the EPT and Berlin (on the end of the gallery there are some pictures of sweets in the well-known shopping centre KaDeWe for my girlfriend):http://www.flickr.com/photos/61739113@N08/sets/72157626359137989/
Sorry for the quality, I’ll do better next time (except my shaky hands, I can’t change that)..

As always, questions are welcome,

GL everyone!

PS: Oh I almost forgot to mention it. During the first tournament, I realized that I was sitting beside a member of PokerStrategy (won’t tell his name here) because he was speaking with another one about some players.
I asked him about his nickname in the forum and after he told me, I was trying to be polite (and being on ps.de for about 5 years, chances were high I’ve read a few of his posts) and said “ahhh yeah I guess I know you”. He replied: “well you should know me, if you want to use the content” and turned away. He never asked me for my nickname or anything else and didn't talk to me during the breaks neither.

Ooouhhhkay. Very pleasant! I looked him up later that day and he plays NL200.. I always wonder why so many poker players are that arrogant.. I mean it’s not like you are a superstar or incredible clever just because you’ve managed to make a few thousands bucks with a card game (against hobby players).

But maybe I should become a smug, too, so let’s make it official, if you read this: Dear NL200 superstar, if I ever have to play your lollerstakes (where a bigbet of my limit equals your full stack), I’ll use your tremendous content. Booyaka.

Also the tilting physically part is pretty funny, I've wanted to throw my laptop out of the window for like 10 times the last 2 weeks I played but I never did it because I knew I'd lose all my handhistories when I'd break my HD.

Long time, no hear.. finally I'm back from the Dominican Republic. I was able to take a break and to relax (normally I'm not a big fan of vacation). I didn't even take my MBP oder Netvertible with me, nor did I take the PSP or IPod - just my mobile phone to check Facebook time after time.

Unfortunately, right after my landing in Punta Cana I got a SMS from a friend about Black Friday.. I couldn't check the Internet so I had absolutely no clue what was going on. Nevertheless, I stayed calm the first week, which was very surprising for me, as a scenario like this could alter my prospects in a dramatic way.. during the second week, I started to become more stressed and thought about the consequences every single minute.

You know, since I can remember, I was concerned about money. Got my money on my mind and my mind on my money... soooooo true!! Every single time I go to the toilet I am calculating how much money I'll need to buy a house / a car / how much I'll have to spent for my (nonexistent) kids to study / what if the radiator breaks / what about a holiday apartement / etc

It really drives me CRAZY sometimes and a few years ago, I've often felt depressed and cried a lot because of ridiculous sums of money. As I started to earn substanial amounts on a regular basis, I felt like I was able to guarantee myself a better lifestyle and a prospering future. All of my problems seemed to have gone, except for the fear of losing everything - including (girl)friends, job(s), possibilities.. and suddenly, all at once there it was again, thanks to Black Friday.

Surprisingly, I didn't freak out at all. I guess it's because I've got a Plan B and I tried to enjoy every single moment of the last two years. If Poker had ended on 15.04.2011, I still would've gained a lot of experience and enough money to finish my master's degree. It's definitely not one of my favorite occupations, but I do think about life without Poker from time to time to prepare myself for an eventual Super-GAU. I'll share my thoughts about that with you in one of my next blog entries.

After all, it doesn't look that bad right now. Things could get worse though and we'll see if poker sites manage to get some new recreational players from .eu to deposit money. I can't tell you more about the situation on the tables at the moment, because I haven't played online for about 4 weeks now (except one session yesterday, where I mainly played MTTs).

I'll make another post about my trip to the Dominican Republic in a few days with some photographs. Have a nice day!

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by workah0lic: 12.05.2011 22:28.

@Firefly52: why, the winning-thing or being a thimblerig professional.. or the mid-highstakes part?
@Yoghi: sry, no screen names for the public. Regarding your physical tilt, it'd be a lot easier for you if you simply use http://www.dropbox.com (for free) and store your hand histories in the net (coud computing)

Tripreport: London

I'm back again! The food at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant was DELICIOUS, I recommend you folks to visit it someday. Meal for 2 persons with drinks: 310 British Pounds.. well someone has to do sth for economy

Walking through London was siiiick.. I counted about 20 Bentleys, and it seems like Range Rovers are the British scooters. However, one guy still managed to shine out a bit:

Regarding Poker, I just busted in the $215 PLO HU SCOOP event, again ITM. Not exactly my standard hourly, but I had fun playing which is rare enough. I have a ton of stuff to do for university, e.g. I'll do my last examen for my Bachelor next week, so don't expect to see me at the tables in the next few days.

I grew up in London, but we never had a Bentley or a Range Rover (we call them Chelsea tractors). And £310 for a meal?? That's a couple of weeks' shopping in my house. You can eat at my house for £200 if you like. Bargain! Glad you enjoyed yourself though.